ANNOTATED LIST OF THE RECENT BRACHIOPODA IN THE COLLECTION OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THIRTY-THREE NEW FORMS. By William Healey Dall, Honorary Curator of Mollushs, United States National Museum. The collection of recent Brachiopods, in the United States Museum began with the material obtained by the United States Exploring Expedition under Wilkes, mostly in the Magellanic region. Since then the chief additions have been received from the dredgings of the steamers of the United States Coast Survey and the United States Fish Commission, now the Bureau of Fisheries ; my own dredgings in the North Pacific and Bering Sea; and the material in the Jeffreys Collection purchased by the United States National Museum, chiefly comprising specimens from the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Valuable contributions have been received from the West Indies and Florida dredgings of Mr. J. B. Henderson, jr., and from the University of Tokio, collected by Prof. E. S. Morse. Miscella-neous small purchases and exchanges have filled various gaps. The total reserve series now contains 181 diflPerent forms repre-sented by over 6,000 specimens from various localities, including many original types, and of these some 33 are new. Our principal weakness lies in the absence of some recently described forms from the southern hemisphere, and a few of the abyssal rarities. I have not had the privilege of examining the collection of the late Thomas Davidson now in the paleontological department of the British Museum (Natural History), but with this possible exception the collection in the United States National Museum is, I believe unrivaled. In the preparation of the list the classification of Beecher and Schuchert has in the main been followed, supplemented by data from later researches. In reviewing the nomenclature it was found that some changes were necessary, due to the fact that Dr. Thomas Davidson, Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys and some others of the earlier writers seem to have been little interested in this branch of the subject, and often included in their synonymy admittedly earlier names than those they habitu, ally used, with no consideration of the claims of priority, as in the case of the two species described by Pallas, of which one was accepted Proceedings u. S. National Museum, Vol. 57— No. 2314. 261
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